Litzman: Soon Hareidim Will be Banned from North Tel Aviv

The “incitement” against the hareidi-religious community in Israel has let a “cat out of the bag" - a bad one, said MK Yaakov Litzman

By David Lev

First Publish: 6/2/2013, 5:40 PM

MK Litzman

Flash 90

The deliberations by the Perry Committee, and the accompanying “incitement” against the hareidi-religious community in Israel, have let a “cat out of the bag,” according to United Torah Jewry MK Yaakov Litzman – a dangerous cat that will bring Israel to a dangerous division, he said in an interview with business newspaper Globes on Sunday.

“The incitement gets worse by the week,” Litzman said. “Whenever Finance Minister Yair Lapid does not have an answer to a budget problem, he comes up with a 'hareidi solution' – cutting benefits or funding for hareidim. The way things are going, hareidim will soon be unable to walk down the streets of secular neighborhoods like North Tel Aviv for fear of being accosted and attacked. Don't say we didn't warn you when that happens,” Litzman said.

Litzman also minimized reports of hareidi groups who planned to take revenge on IDF soldiers if hareidi yeshiva students are arrested for refusing to serve in the army. “These are extreme and very minor cases,” Litzman said. “I suggest you see what is actually happening on the ground, at how many in the hareidi community are suffering from verbal attacks and increased violence. Now they turn around and accuse us of violence, but – and let me be very careful in how I put this – the secular community is in no position to lecture us on violence.

“I have also not heard of any secular leaders who have condemned violence, neither physical nor verbal, against the hareidi-religious community – such as the verbal incitement of Finance Minister Lapid against us,” in which he said Israelis were “sick of taking orders” from hareidi political parties, said Litzman.

“There cannot be a situation where some in Israel wishes to learn Torah and this is denied him,” Litzman added. “This is something that guides us, and the more the state tries to force us to abandon Torah, the less successful they will be.”